A question for Gordon Brown: whatever happened to prudence?

What ever happened to Prudence? Remember her?

By Richard Fletcher

5:56AM GMT 29 Jan 2009

In the 1990s she was the trusty companion of our then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who could barely utter a sentence without mentioning her name.

Prudence was, of course, abandoned by Brown almost the moment he stepped over the threshold of Number 11. Nevertheless she still warranted 12 mentions in the 2000 budget. By 2002 that had halved and the poor girl was mentioned just twice in 2003.

It would be difficult – even for Gordon Brown – to mention Prudence today.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies on Wednesday laid bare the dire state of the national finances.

Katie, my 18-month old daughter, will be graduating from university by the time our national debt returns to pre-recession levels, according to the gloomy forecasts from IFS. Like the Treasury Select Committee the IFS appears to have little faith in the government's forecasts.

The report's language was as diplomatic as the select committee, which warned in a separate report yesterday that the risk to the Treasury's forecasts was on the "downside".

But the message was the same: the government's growth forecasts are optimistic. The Chancellor and Prime Minister may believe that we are nearing the end of the recession, but nobody else does. What would Prudence say if she was still around?

The result, of course, will be that our national debt looks set to spiral even higher under Brown. The IFS expects it to peak at 60pc of national income.

One of Brown's proudest boasts as chancellor was that he reduced the level of indebtedness. The facts say otherwise.